Caroline Kennedy is getting lambasted in the blogosphere.

Could Caroline Kennedy have given us any clearer indication of her lack of qualifications for the Senate than her disastrous exit from the race?

…Elsewhere, Teddy Kennedy’s camp is said to be super pissed that Caroline tried to use her uncle’s health as an excuse, because “It makes him look like he is at death’s door,” and could undermine his authority in the Senate.

That’s pretty interesting, and I’ll admit it hadn’t even occurred to me because, well, the way Caroline quit sort of made me assume that Teddy was at death’s door.

In fact, those close to Kennedy, 76, say that while the Senator is suffering occasional seizures, like the one that sent him to a hospital on Tuesday during the celebratory Capitol lunch for the newly inaugurated President, he is generally doing well.

Meanwhile, it now appears that the Teddy story was a flat-out lie, and that the real issue had to do with a housekeeper.

Problems involving taxes and a household employee surfaced during the vetting of Caroline Kennedy and derailed her candidacy for the Senate, a person close to Gov. David A. Paterson said on Thursday, in an account at odds with Ms. Kennedy’s own description of her reasons for withdrawing.

…Ms. Kennedy’s own political advisers appeared at times to be unable to reach her on Wednesday night.

I’ll admit to some satisfaction: Pretty much everything I wrote in this piece—the first article, I think, to come out against Caroline Kennedy as a senator—has proved correct.

Kennedy has ventured into the public arena as little as possible, and when she has, she has endeavored to dictate the terms. Perhaps now, with her brother dead and her Uncle Ted extremely ill—and her children of college age—Kennedy is changing her mind. But can she change her patterns of behavior?

I wrote in that piece that Caroline was a Democrat but not a democrat. So, if the story is true, it strikes me as oddly fitting that her candidacy would be derailed because of problems involving a servant. (Such a telling word, servant.)

And what encourages me about all this is that the democratic process worked: A group of powerful people came together to try to create a senator, not because that person was the best candidate for the job but because railroading a political appointment would elevate their political and social and economic standing.

(I know some of the people involved, and dedication to the public interest is not their prime motivator.)

Maybe another time this behind-the-scenes power play would have worked, but not in the age of Obama—it just didn’t sit well—and people rejected the elitism of the process and of the candidate.

In other words, democracy triumphed over class and wealth. This is a good sign.